gabriellen6xf: January 2011

Friday, January 28, 2011

Secrets to Making Money

In an interview, a former credit card thief talks about some of the scams he used to run on unwary consumers. It's got some good takeaways for protecting yourself, like the one where you make up fake answers to security questions. With all the info that can be found online now some of these security questions aren't that hard to figure out. So instead of putting down the real answer to "What's your mother's maiden name?" put down "unicorn princess."

Secrets of a Former Credit Card Thief [Yahoo] (Thanks to Newdreams!)

Facebook finally put out a press release on PR Newswire officially setting the record straight on $1.5 billion in funding. The overseas clientele of Goldman Sachs bought $1 billion, and the bank plus Digital Sky Technologies together invested another $500 million.

The blogosphere will doubtlessly explode with posts about why and how the numbers seem to have changed from what was originally reported by The New York Times on January 2. I don’t think the size of the deal selling to Goldman’s clientele shrank from $1.5 billion to $1 billion because of U.S. investors got shut out of the deal, although that’s a clever idea.

I think the discrepancy more likely has to do with the nature of off-the-record scoops, like the one that started the media frenzy in the first place. Rarely do the early leaks of secrets ever turn out to be accurate. Don’t mistake this as dissing any of the previous coverage of $500 million in direct investment and $1.5 billion from Goldman clientele. Like the release says, Facebook chose to limit the overseas offering to $1 billion, after the bank offered the choice of a range from $375 million to $1.5 billion.

The release consists of one straightforward factual paragraph, a quote from Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman and then a set of four questions and answers about the deal — all of it appears below, except for the boilerplate at the tail end. The fact that this official statement came out today indicates that the deal has closed. Read on for the release:

Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion

Facebook Receives $1 Billion from Goldman Sachs Overseas Offering; Digital Sky Technologies and Goldman Sachs Also Recently Made $500 Million Direct Investment

Investment Values Facebook at $50 Billion

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook today announced it has raised U.S.$1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion.

The transaction consisted of two parts. Today, Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to its non-U.S. clients in a fund that invested $1 billion in Facebook Class A common stock. In December, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and funds managed by Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook Class A common stock at the same valuation.

“Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing,” said David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer. “With this investment completed, we now have greater financial flexibility to explore whatever opportunities lie ahead.”

The investment generated a significant number of questions from interested parties and Facebook has addressed the most common ones below.

Why did Facebook raise this money?

DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an investment, and Facebook decided it was an attractive opportunity to bolster its cash reserves and increase its financial flexibility with limited dilution to existing shareholders.

Why did Facebook choose to raise $1 billion in the overseas offering?

Under the transaction’s terms, Facebook had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from the Goldman Sachs overseas offering, at the discretion of Facebook. While the offering was oversubscribed, Facebook made a business decision to limit the offering to $1 billion.

What are Facebook’s plans for the proceeds of this transaction?

There are no immediate plans for these funds. Facebook will continue investing to build and expand its operations.

Does this investment mean that Facebook will have more than 500 shareholders?

Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

It’s great to see that the social network will indeed begin making financial disclosures to the public by the end of April; and the release doesn’t say anything about whether or when an initial public offering might happen.

Why do you think the total size of the transaction changed from the originally reported $1.5 billion coming from overseas clients of Goldman Sachs to the currently announced $1 billion?

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's future as government leader may not be as solid as it.

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's future as government leader may not be as solid as it.

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The ecumenical news agency ENInews has been scaled back and may face more cuts as its budget shrinks.

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's future as government leader may not be as solid as it.

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Monday, January 24, 2011

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Making Easy Money

John Rubino at Dollar Collapse.com obviously thinks, like I do, that inflation is a Terrible, Terrible Thing (TTT).

To prove it, and to simultaneously prove to my wife, kids, relatives, co-workers and neighbors that I am not the “weirdest man who ever lived” as concerns inflation, I call him up on the phone!

A man whom I assume is Mr. Rubino answers, “Hello?” and I say, “John! John, old buddy, old pal! This is Mogambo, calling to verify that you are scared out of your freaking mind about how inflation is rising all around the world because central banks, similarly all around the world, are creating more and more money, which causes inflation in prices, which is made worse for foreigners by us dumbass Americans having a trade deficit of over $600 billion a year, equaling a third of combined global trade deficits, which means that we are buying actual things from foreigners and exporting $600 billion dollars overseas, increasing their money supplies and thus increasing their inflation in prices, meaning that we should be buying gold and silver with fevered abandon, and how the usual reaction to impending starvation by the masses is such that we should be building fortresses in our backyards, bristling with guns and cannons, and maybe some of those cool Agent 007 James Bond devices like, you know, smoke screens, ejector seats, laser beams, and heat-seeking rockets, because (my voice rising to crescendo) We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD) thanks to the foul Federal Reserve creating so, so, so much freaking much money that it boggles the mind (‘boing!’) to even contemplate a Quantitative Easing II to effect an increase in the US money supply (to monetize government debt, no less!) of a whopping $600 billion in the next six months, of which half will end up overseas in the accounts of foreigners thanks to the trade deficit, who will use the money to buy US assets, thus repatriating the cash back to the USA to do its inflationary havoc whilst we strangely export the ownership of means of production to what I assume are sinister foreign forces, probably aligned with Illuminati conspirators, New World Order bozos, rogue government agents, extraterrestrial forces, Satan, or something. I mean, who really knows?”

He then replies, tellingly, “What? Who?” whereupon the line abruptly went dead, also proving that the CIA and/or the FBI and/or unknown government agents and/or aliens from outer space are not only tapping my telephone, but doing a poor job of it, too!

Anyway, I think Mr. Rubino’s position is clear when he headlines his recent essay “‘Bring us Sugar!’ US Inflation And the Rest of the World”, with the rest of the essay being about inflation breaking out all over the place!

And if there is one thing that a Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) knows, it is to buy gold and silver when inflation is rising, as it is, and will, because the Federal Reserve is creating lots and lots of money, which means, as proved 100% reliable by 4,500 years of history, that inflation in prices is Super Freaking Guaranteed (SFG), and the higher the increase in the money supply, the higher the inflation.

And, by that selfsame 4,500 years, it’s also proved that gold and silver will soar in value as all else Turns To Crap (TTC).

And with that kind of guaranteed and easy decision-making, what can you say except, “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!”?

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for The Daily Reckoning

Economic Ruination from Money Creation to Price Inflation originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day."

Last night, we pointed out that as a part of their countdown to 10 billion app downloads, Apple actually revealed the top all-time app downloads for paid iPhone apps, free iPhone apps, paid iPad apps, and free iPad apps. The top results seemed pretty straightforward, with a few oddities here or there. And there may be a good reason for such oddities. The system appears pretty easy to game.

Well, technically, it’s probably not really “gaming” the system. At least not yet. It just appears that Apple is being a little sloppy in populating their lists. After speaking to a few top app developers, it seems that Apple is counting total download numbers in aggregate, regardless of if an app switched between being free and paid.

In other words, to boost yourself on the top paid app lists, all you would have to do is go free for all but one of the days, then switch to paid, and all those downloads would be counted towards your total as a paid app, it seems.

Obviously, free apps tend to be downloaded more than paid ones. So if you had a popular app and went free, then went back to paid, this could be a great way to jack your stats.

And several apps have done this switch from time to time (though we’re not saying they did it to jack their stats — they probably didn’t know that Apple would rank this way — instead it was just a nice offer to customers). Top apps like Traffic Rush and a few of the Tap Tap Revenge games are good examples of this.

One developer we spoke to, John Casasanta of TapTapTap, said that he found the numbers fishy because they’ve done multiple apps and Apple’s rankings don’t line up with their actual separated numbers. But if you take into account free and paid downloads for one app, things begin to align.

We’ve reached out to Apple about the issue, and will update if we hear back. In the meantime, be a bit wary of some of the top paid apps on that list — they may not be making as much money as it may seem given their position.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Make Making Money

We're still catching up on sleep after leaving CES, but ASUS is tireless, winding up for another product release, something new it calls the Eee PC Sirocco. We have nothing to go by at this point other than the teaser image above, which promises this new product is going to be "making waves" when it is released. This metaphorical euphemism could mean anything from a revolutionary new architecture that will sweep across the industry to another netbook with some funny textures on it. If forced to bet we'd put more money on the latter than the former but, as we mentioned, we simply aren't in Vegas any more and so won't be engaging in such shenanigans.

I recently watched the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop from well-known artist Banksy. I got a kick out of this film for multiple reasons having liked Banksy's artwork for years now.

What most amused me though is how well it goes about making you question what celebrity is and how much you can achieve by becoming famous. The key point for me is questioning whether you really need to be creative and innovative above and beyond being famous.

Then Mike Butcher over at Techcrunch went and posted something this morning about startup teams trumping celebrity tech entrepreneurs. In summary, he too is making the point that execution far outweighs celebrity.

Basically, what I'm getting at, is all the parallels you're starting to see between the startup world and the movie business. I am definitely not an expert on the movie business and can only imagine what it's truly like from afar. Yet, we've all seen enough of it to realize a bit how things work in Hollywood. You basically have a couple large companies or studios as they're usually called. There you have management at the top who are the power-brokers in the industry. They back films which are used as vehicles to market actors who either succeed or not. If they do succeed, they are cast in further films and a ton of marketing is thrown at these films, regardless of whether these actors have talent or not.

Ultimately, the goal is to make as much money as possible and if you're the one making all this money, keep other people out so you can continue to make as much money as possible. Sure, there are some stand-out actors, managers and studios who go against the grain but basically it's an industry optimized to make money. Simplified by me immensely but I believe you understand what I am saying.

Now let's switch over to the startup world. It's no longer Hollywood and we're now a bit north in Silicon Valley. You have a couple firms who call all the shots and are known as Tier 1 VC's (with some major players like Google, Apple, and Facebook thrown in for good measure).

These VC's fund firms instead of films run by entrepreneurs instead of actors. Some of these entrepreneurs are successful and some are not. Those who are get funded further by these Tier 1 firms. Lots of companies are started and sold since these power brokers in the Valley sit on each other's boards and pass deals back and forth. The power brokers continue to make money and those entrepreneurs who don't lead to successful exits get weeded out (where's the reality TV version of "out to pasture" for entrepreneurs?)

Ultimately, as in the movie business, you make as much money as possible and keep out the riff-raff who would keep you from making tons of money as long as possible.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in no way arguing about whether the movie or startup business is right or wrong or skewed in someone's favor or not. I'm also probably simplifying it too much as well. But the point I am making is that we are in a world where it's about making money. Sure, you can get your touchy-feely on and say you're changing the world but ultimately you wouldn't "work" if it wasn't about making some money.

Hence, my advice to any entrepreneur is to take advantage of whatever you have if you ultimately want to be successful. If you are naturally good looking, get your face out there. Be on TV and in the press. If it helps you make money, go for it.

At the same time, if media attention doesn't help you make more money, don't focus on it. Get your pretty head down to business and execute like hell to innovate, optimize and sell your product. Or have the best of both worlds. Be a CEO focussed on getting your brand or product out there and have a number two (great blog post by Ben Horowitz) who takes care of business. What you need to focus on is making money and being the scrappy entrepreneur that you are, you'll optimize wherever you can to achieve your goal.

In the end it's never about who was most popular that determines success. Just think back to all those football players and cheerleaders in high school. (I've seen some of them from my high school....thank you Facebook.....and had a good laugh!) So often there are people you never hear about making tons of cash since they don't need to focus on media.

On the other hand, if Twitter/Foursquare/Zynga/Groupon hadn't received so much media attention, you think they'd be where they are now? I highly doubt it and I guarantee you that they had a clear strategy in place to use media (and position their founders) from the start. Hence, don't waste time focussed on the wrong things. If you're a celebrity entrepreneur who's counting his millions hats off to you. If you've become a media darling and are broke, well tough luck kid. Try something new.

By the way, here's what Exit Through the Gift Shop is about cut and pasted from Wikipedia. Think what you will about whether it's a real story or not but reast assured the dollars earned by "Mr Brainwash" were real!!

Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film is a Gonzo Documentary which tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art. It is presented as a documentary, but reviewers have questioned its factuality. The film charts Guetta's constant documenting of his every moment on film, to his chance contact with his cousin, the artist Invader, and his documenting of a host of street artists with focus on Shepard Fairey, and also Banksy though the latter's face is never shown, and his voice is distorted to preserve his anonymity

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Look out, Hollywood. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a warning for.

Friday, January 14, 2011

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Canadian Tech Conferences to Attend in 2011

We’ve rounded-up some Canadian tech-related conferences happening in 2011 that we thought you might like to attend.

“My first observation was the opportunity in Canada is far bigger than I expected — and I expected it to be huge. I think there’s just an enormous amount of upside in terms of businesses catching up with consumers, and unleashing a little more creativity on the web” – Google Canada, Country Director Chris O’Neill

Mesh Conference

When: May 25th – 26th 2011

Where: Toronto, Ontario

Mesh was founded by 5 esteemed individuals including ME Consulting’s Mark Evens and Mathew Ingram from GigaOm. This web conference is a venue for people to “connect, share and inspire” and its focus is on anything related to the web. Mesh looks at the way the web is “affecting the media, marketing, business and society as a whole”. As of today, Mesh has not announced its keynote speakers for this year but you can be sure it will be filled with workshops, panels and thought provoking conversations and presentations. We’ve heard nothing but good things about Mesh and it’ll likely be a worthwhile experience.

FITC Toronto 2011 – The Design & Technology Festival

When: May 2 – 4th 2011

Where: Toronto, Ontario

The FITC conference began as a Flash Festival, but over the last few years, it has evolved and branched out gradually adding more creative and technical presentations. FITC aims to “educate, challenge and inspire”and they’ve previously held 20 events over the last nine years in five countries. At the event, Flash, motion design, Flex and Air are the types of subjects you’ll learn about in the presentations. FITC prides itself on the quality of its handpicked speakers and additionally claims its “parties are legendary”. Sounds very intriguing.

CeC (Canada -e- connect)

When: February 2-4

Where: Toronto Ontario

The CeC conference was created by the Canadian tourism industry and mainly focuses on e-marketing within that industry. Any tourism business or organization can use this conference as a tool to learn more about using technology to market and gain sales. It also takes a look at opportunities, web trends and online successful campaigns. I’d go just for the speakers. They’ve grabbed three internet celebs to present this year; Amber Mac, Tara Hunt and Scott Stratten. If you’re in the tourism industry, I’d say this one is a must-go.

Confoo

When: March 9th-11th

Where: Montreal, Quebec

The Confoo conference held in Montreal, Quebec will be kicking off another coding conference in 2011. This conference won’t interest you unless you’re a coder interested on learning more about Java, .Net, PHP, Python and Ruby. But, if

you are a code-monkey you’ll likely have a lot to take away. Presenters will be walking the developers through programming solutions, security, content management systems, frameworks and databases. Confoo also promises a management portion that includes project management, referencing (SEO), web marketing analysis and social networking. Overall, this sounds like a great conference to attend if you rawk the code.

StartupCamp Montreal 7

When: January 20th, 2011

Where: Montreal, Quebec

Later this month, StartupCamp Montreal will be holding the seventh edition of its event for startup companies. If you’re involved in a startup, this conference will put you in contact with investors, fellow companies and can assist you in working out things like your business pitch. It will also feature speakers such as successful native-Canadian entrepeneur Perry Evans.

Mobile Camp Montreal

When: May 14th, 2011

Where: Montreal, Quebec

This year will be the first ever Mobile Camp Montreal and will focus on all things mobile. It’s still in its infancy although we spoke with the organizers this evening and they tell us they’re confident the event will be a success. “The idea is essentially to act as a central point for mobile enthusiasts, whether they’re into devices, apps, OS or marketing. We’ll have people come talk to us about which devices are the best, what to expect from 2011, where is mobile going, how to properly target the mobile market, how to advertise, how to track, etc etc” the event founder said via email. They’re looking for sponsorship and presenters if you’re inclined to help them pull it off.

This is not a complete list of Canadian conferences, just a few you should think about attending in this coming year. And if you know of a great tech conference in Canada, please give us a shout in the comments.

Canadian Tech Conferences to Attend in 2011

We’ve rounded-up some Canadian tech-related conferences happening in 2011 that we thought you might like to attend.

Mesh Conference

When: May 25th – 26th 2011

Where: Toronto, Ontario

FITC Toronto 2011 – The Design & Technology Festival

When: May 2 – 4th 2011

Where: Toronto, Ontario

CeC (Canada -e- connect)

When: February 2-4

Where: Toronto Ontario

Confoo

When: March 9th-11th

Where: Montreal, Quebec

StartupCamp Montreal 7

When: January 20th, 2011

Where: Montreal, Quebec

Mobile Camp Montreal

When: May 14th, 2011

Where: Montreal, Quebec

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Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Did you watch the memorial service in Tucson last night? It sure seemed to me to be a cavalcade of statemanship -- presidents of nations and universities and student bodies, governors new and old, political figures on the left and right ...

ABC News: U.S. snow, floods in Australia and Brazil the product of ...

'World News Tonight' spells gloom and doom for the world if climate change isn't tamed.

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Building a better strategy should be the constant goal of every small business owner and entrepreneur. Think your business is running as well as it can, has.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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News Corp considers MySpace sale, what happened? - Lost Remote

After slashing 47% of its staff earlier this week, News Corp is considering selling the struggling MySpace, among other strategic options, Bloomberg reports. MySpace relaunched as an entertainment hub in October, ...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

The first impressions in light of President Obama's speech at tonight's memorial for the victims of the Arizona shooting, and, at least on Fox News, the reviews are overwhelming positive. Charles Krauthammer, Chris Wallace, ...

Monday, January 10, 2011

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Martin,

While I respect your efforts to warn would-be entrepreneurs about illegal schemes, your observations regarding multilevel marketing (MLM) are ignorant and unjustified. Please understand that I am not using the term "ignorant" derogatorily, but rather to describe your commentary as being ignore-ant of readily available historical, mathematical, and legal information about this industry and profession.

First of all, as a successful distributor, consultant, advocate, and court certified expert in the field of multilevel marketing, I am offended by your reference to my profession as a pyramid scheme only by a "matter of degree". There are well over 1,000 such companies in the U.S. alone, which is one of 80+ countries where it's recognized as a legal and legitimate form of business. You assert that they "all" sound like "get rich quick schemes" to you. How many of these several hundred MLM programs have you researched and evaluated? This business model has existed for 75 years, and includes not only Mary Kay and Lia Sophia, but also Shaklee, Avon, Discovery Toys, Watkins, Tupperware, Pampered Chef (owned by Warren Buffet) and many other good corporate citizens (over 20 of which are publicly traded). Your characterization of this profession does a grave disservice to the 30 million world-wide distributors, 20,000+ employees, hundreds of vendors, and thousands of investors associated with this industry.

You state "…the essence of an entrepreneur is creating something new and innovative, whereas an MLM is a traditional formula on an existing product…". And a typical Starbucks or McDonald's franchise is not? But this argument is academic considering the wide array of innovative products that have come from, or been popularized, by the MLM industry. For example, no one even heard of Mangosteen, Noni, Goji or Acai ten years ago. Today these "super fruits" make up a billion dollar world wide market, both within and outside of the MLM industry. Yes, some marketers of these fruit drinks do over-hype their products, and many untrained, unprofessional distributors do make unsubstantiated claims about them. But let's be clear in that this is an issue with how MLM is often packaged, not with the content.

Yet, you go on to claim that an upfront requirement to purchase marketing and training material (which is typically less than $50) that will better educate the new rep on how to properly promote their business is an "unnecessary and are inappropriate" red flag.

You go on to site online material such as Van Druff's “What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?” as a credible source of information. This is in spite of the fact this article was originally written 21 years ago by an individual who has never participated in the profession he criticizes. This is one of the most ill-conceived and debunked anti-MLM article in existence, as is evident here: http://www.marketwaveinc.com/viewarticle.asp?id=7

Your suggestion to look for a formal home office street address is valid, however the existence of a toll-free number is virtually meaningless considering the ease in which one can now be obtained, and considering Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC had one. Furthermore, the BBB routinely issues low grades to MLM companies due to the "industry in which this business operates" – that is, until the company pays for BBB membership. Then the BBB will have no concern about the "industry in which this business operates" and will unconditionally award it at least an "A-" grade.

While I agree with your "red flags" #2, #3, and #4, when evaluating whether more income is coming from purchases of downline reps, per #5, you must also consider that, according to several states as well as the Federal Trade Commission, those downline reps can count as bona fide customers. As can be gleaned from this FTC letter to the DSA here, http://www.marketwaveinc.com/FTC_Letter.pdf, the FTC considers only the motive for buying the product, not what percentage is sold to non-distributor customers. And, in fact, many retail customers do choose to become reps, and most MLM reps are passionate, often to a fault, about their products.

You state, "you will need lots of family and friends to make it work" yet just a few sentences later you state "The Internet has made it so easy now. In the old days you had to actually visit people, or at least call them, to pitch your fabulous new opportunity." Your first statement is utterly false, while your latter statement is quite correct. While exposing one's product or opportunity to a friend or family member is still common (with the majority of industry leaders training to lead with the product), the majority of marketing is now done online and directed towards one's "cold market".

You further theorize that "Multi-Level Marketing” and “Network Marketing” were "sanitized terms" invented after Amway and others were charged with “pyramiding” back in the early 1970s. What you failed to mention was that the courts ultimately ruled Amway, and thus the MLM compensation model, was NOT an illegal pyramid. Furthermore, the term “Network Marketing” was coined in the early 1990s.

Finally, you do concede "there must be something to the business model" since "some big business icons like Donald Trump are joining in the MLM parade". Besides Trump you can include the afore-mentioned Warren Buffet, as well as Anthony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Paul Zane Pilzer, Brian Tracy, Mark Victor Hansen, and Bill Clinton (http://www.youtube.com/DirectSelling411) as supporters of this profession.

Martin, pyramid schemes do often try to disguise themselves as legal, legitimate MLM operations – because they want to be perceived as legal and legitimate. And yes, we do suffer a guilt by association with illegal pyramid schemes, but this is due precisely to wholly inaccurate portrayals within the media such as yours.

Thank you for considering, an allowing me to present, an opposing point of view.

Len Clements

Founder & CEO

MarketWave, Inc.

The Middle East’s largest online auction and buying site has decided auctions are so last decade.

From the beginning of 2011 sellers won’t get the option to sell their products in an auction. It’s fixed price, or none at all.

The decision comes as a shock to many as Souq.com, which opened its doors to the public in 2005 and has since launched in 5 countries in the region, has always been portrayed as the eBay of the Middle East. At least in terms of online auctions, not anymore.

“We (and most of our sellers) want to offer the best online shopping experience to users in the region, and this is one step along the way to support this goal.” said CEO and Founder of Souq.com Ronaldo Mouchawar in an email about the recent shift.

This change, as most in life, will have its supporters and detractors. The good thing is, it looks like a only slim minority might end up annoyed.

To illustrate the above, lets say you’re a painter and you work from home during your spare time. I’m one of those who believe art has no price, but since it’s good to have paint to create priceless masterpieces, putting the occasional price tag on your work isn’t entirely evil. The only problem with that is how do you put a price tag on art in the first place? Van Gough considered giving money for art is as important as being an artist yourself. That’s where auctions come in strong.

By putting up a painting to sell through an auction, the seller allows the highest bidder to give her as much it takes to win the auction, or otherwise ask to ‘Buy Now’ according to a price the seller sets. Will this shift be good for those who realistically don’t know how much their work is worth? I would say no.

On the flip-side regional retail stores tend to invest large amounts of money to put their products online on their own, and usually fail miserably. Many factors come into play, but the most obvious are a large user base and an easy to use website to buy from.

This encouraged Souq.com to build a platform for merchants and retail stores to offer their products on Souq through fixed prices (almost all the time), and through Souq Stores which are customizable online outlets for retailers such as UAE’s
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